Eye Opening

One of the hazards of living in the northwest corner of Connecticut is becoming accustomed to beauty and no longer really noticing what we see every day. Sometimes a picture that frames the familiar enables us to see what has been there, unnoticed, all along.

Our son, Lawrence, has a photographer’s eye and never fails to come back from a trip with eye-opening pictures. This last week end he spent some time with us and brought his camera along.The purple finch was on our bird feeder. It’s just one of a number of birds that drop by daily and that we take for granted. The stream was a little further away. We went for a short walk on the Appalachian trail, about half a mile from the house, and decided not to cross the stream on the log. A two mile detour in the car took us to the other side of the stream and from there we climbed to the top of Breadloaf Mountain for views of the Housatonic Valley.

I’ve seen any number of purple finches, but this picture enables me really to see one. And I’ve crossed the brook a number of times without stopping to look.

Perhaps this is related to what William Blake was talking about when he wrote:

To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.